Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	humane_a	law_n	obligation_n	1,134	5	9.8189	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49314	A discourse concerning the nature of man both in his natural and political capacity, both as he is a rational creature and member of a civil society : with an examination of Mr. Hobbs's opinions relating hereunto / by Ja. Lowde ...	Lowde, James.	1694 (1694)	Wing L3299; ESTC R36487	110,040	272

far as for the sake thereof to reward the Men. So that if Epicurus was vertuous beyond these degrees that we must impute to the Man rather than to the Philosopher rather to his vertuous temper than to his principles So that whatever he was as to his own person yet I believe his followers made but right consequences from his false principles when they inserr'd Let us eat and drink for to morrow we dye Nor can the particular excellencies of some of that Sect be any just vindication of any false principle or wicked practice in the first Founder of it any more than Alexander's great Courage and Conduct in War can be made use of as an argument to prove the truth of his Master Aristotle's opinion concerning the Eternity of the World Marcus Antoninus was as great an example of all natural and moral excellencies in the Sect of the Stoicks as any other could possibly be in the Sect of the Epicureans and yet in respect of any ones particular endowments being able to vindicate an error in his Founder we may say here as it was proverbially said of a desperate and ruin'd state Ne Marcus quidem And whereas 't is said That Epicurus took great satisfaction at his Death by reflecting upon his Life and his I suppose Physiological Inventions the greatest invention that he seem'd remarkable for was his solving the liberty of the Will meerly by the motion of senseless Atoms declining uncertainly from the Perpendicular now this seems no such pious invention as to take such solid comfort in at his Death I shall here only add these two general Observations First That Vertue according to his principles must be founded on very weak and uncertain grounds and reasons especially as to the more difficult duties of an holy Life they being at present both unpleasant and afterwards unrewardable So that if the Epicureans did give themselves to the practice of such Vertues out of an absolute sense of Duty or from the consideration of the excellency of the thing it self then were they the most Heroickly Vertuous not only of any sort of Philosophers but also of any other People in the world for then were they vertuous without either hopes of reward or fear of punishment Besides I know not what motions such men can have according to those principles to return to the Practice of an holy Life who by a constant and habitual course in á well regulated extravagance have made such a degree of Vice easy and pleasant to ' em Secondly Happiness according to Epicurus is impossible for he founds it in an impossible condition in rooting out all fear of Death and all doubtful suspicions that may succeed it Now the hopes and fears of future good and evil are anticipations so implanted in us that the rooting them out is a thing absolutely impossible now he tells us that we cannot attain sincere pleasure without Physiology that is I suppose such an Hypothesis of Natural Philosophy as his own which excludes all Divine Providence out of the World and takes away the immortality of the Soul Neque prodesset aliquid humanam sibi parare securitatem cum superna quae sub terrâ sunt suspecta essent Diog. Laert. Now what the Stoicks were among the Heathens that in some resemblance are the Enthusiasts among Christians and then as for the Epicureans we have a sort of Men amongst us who cannot be said so properly to resemble 'em as really to be the same Now whereas the great design of the Gospel was to root out sin and plant the most exemplary Vertue and Piety in the World the Enthusiasts instead of this make the design thereof to consist in something pretendedly above it As First In a Pompous sett of high flown Notions and speculative Truths as if the Sun of Righteousness came only to enlighten the understanding but not either to regulate the Will or warm the Affections as if it was enough to be seraphical in our understandings tho' in the mean time our Wills be vicious and irregular Though this is not so to be understood as if it was indifferent for us what we believe provided that we be careful and conscientious in the way we are in For it is impossible for us to lead a truly good and holy Life without a firm belief of the Christian Articles but then we must not rest in a bare belief of Truth for Truth without Practice becomes not only useless but of bad consequence to us Secondly The Enthusiasts place a great deal of Considence in vain pretences to Divine Revelation as if their Souls were the only Seats of the Deity and as if they were the only Ministers of State here below and Heavens great Privy Councellors As if God's written Word were only a dead Letter unless enlivened by their Interpretations all which tho' different Comments must be of greater Authority than the Text it self not only when they contradict that but also one another Thirdly The Enthusiasts entertain such an imaginary Opinion of Perfection as states 'em not only above all Humane but Divine Laws as if their Wills and Actions were the only Rules of Right and Wrong and that what ever they did was therefore good because done by them Thus are they grown such Giants in Religion as that they have baffled all checks of Conscience and Obedience to Laws which they look upon as mean and low dispensations quite to be laid aside when once Men arrive at this State of Perfection Fourthly Enthusiasm consists in an ill-guided Zeal prodigiously Partial and Indulgent to those of its own perswasion but Furious and Cruel to those who differ from ' em Now as the Stoicks pretended by their false Opinions of Humane Nature to be more than Men So the Enthusiasts by the like mistakes concerning true Religion pretend to be more than Christians tho' indeed they both come short of what they severally pretended to Having thus briefly stated the Question betwixt the Stoicks and Epicureans I shall here further enquire how far God makes use of the lower faculties of the Soul in the communications of himself to Mankind I shall not here go about to explain the manner how God now under the Gospel works upon the minds of Men by the gracious influences of his Holy Spirit for these may be more happily experienc'd than successfully explain'd however I conceive it would be a very preposterous method to do it by beginning at the lower faculties of the Soul for these are not immediately and in the first place wrought upon but by the mediation of an enlightned Understanding and a rectifi'd Will and from those Fountains is Grace and Goodness deriv'd into the Soul Thus our Remedy is apply'd in a way answerable to our Disease the Corruption and Depravation of our Nature Now this consists more especially in these two things in ignorance of the Understanding and impotence and irregularity of the Will answerably hereunto in the Restitution of Man God first

of this Ratiocination or the Ratiocination the Cause of the Idea Some think that these two Reasoning and the Idea ought not to be separated or contradistinguish'd in this dispute For the Idea is not such an Engine as of it self will prove the Being of God without the Use and Exercise of reasoning thereupon So that the Idea doth not exclude but include the use of our Faculties nor is it any receding from the Argument so to do Yet it seems more probable that there is something in Man Co-eval with and connatural to his very Being that dictates such a thing and directs our thoughts and reasonings that way for it is not probable that Men should as it were accidentally and yet so generally agree in one and the same thing without some inward suggestions and intimations at least to employ their Faculties upon such an object viz. a Supreme Being So that though this Idea be not so full and perfect but that it may receive further Additions of strength and clearness from Ratiocination yet this is no more a disparagement to the Works of Nature that they are sometimes further perfected by Study and Industry than it is to a Man that he was not born with all those accomplishments which he hath afterwards acquired Secondly Next to a Sceptick who grants no Principles at all it is the greatest difficulty to convince an Atheist who asserts such absurd and unreasonable ones that he can scarce be urged with any greater so that he will more easily evade the force of any Argument if what we urge upon him as an absurdity if he make it as it were the very Foundation of his Discourse Only 't is observable that such Men are more usually prevail'd upon by the Convictions of Conscience which is done I conceive by awakening those natural impressions of God and their obligations to him in their minds than merely by convincing their Understandings Thirdly In the managing our thoughts upon this subject we ought to consider not only what is in it self possible and perhaps may imply no contradiction but what upon a full consideration of things and all their circumstances may be counted most reasonable what is worthy of our rational Faculties to assert and a prudent Person to believe So that after these inward impressions made upon the minds of Men and those outward manifestations of himself by the Works of Creation and Providence it perhaps would be difficult even for the most Sceptical Person to assign what further Rational Evidence he could desire for the Belief of a Deity Nor does that variety of Opinions concerning the Nature of God in different Nations and among different Persons any whit lessen the credibility of his Being but rather confirms and strengthens it For this shows that it was not the Invention or Contrivance of any single Nation at first nor of more jointly afterwards for if they had thus combin'd together or borrow'd one from another in all probability they would have agreed better in their Notions and Opinions concerning him Nor was Religion any humane Invention to restrain the Exorbitances of Mankind because there was Religion before any such Offences as a Learned Prelate of our own has well observed That Oppression though by Accident grew rather from Religion than Religion from Oppression for before the two Brothers Cain and Abel had offer'd up their Sacrifice there was no such thing as Oppression There are some who tell us that the Being of God cannot be proved by any Internal Arguments from any natural impressions made upon the minds of Men dictating any such thing others that it cannot be proved by any external ones drawn from the nature of the Universe or any thing else without us Now the Atheists make this advantage of these our unseasonable differences herein That they bid us first Answer our own Arguments which we bring against our selves and if the Being of God cannot be proved either way which some among our selves do with too much eagerness severally assert then they think they have gain'd their point For as for Divine Revelation they do not much value that as thinking it not so proper to be urged against them because they believe nothing of the whole matter What Cuperus in his Arcana Atheismi sayes of Divine Revelation that we are first convinc'd by it That there is a God and afterwards thereby enabled to prove it by reason I think may be better apply'd in some proportion to these two ways of probation here made use of thus That from these natural impressions made upon the minds of Men we have the first grounds of our belief of a God and then this is further confirmed by those External Arguments drawn from Nature Quae non prosunt singula juncta juvant I shall here make some short remarks upon Cuperus his Opinion in this particular In the beginning of his Proem he tells us with some kind of Formality and Ostentation That the only prejudice that can be done to a good cause is to endeavour to defend it by weak Arguments That he had frequent opportunities of hearing Atheists being bred up amongst 'em discovering the weakness of those Arguments which the Theists brought against ' em Hereupon he was forced to think upon some more effectual way of proving the Being of a God than hitherto had been made use of which is this to deny all natural knowledge of God and utterly to reject at least at first all those Arguments drawn from the light of nature and to prove his Being by Divine Revelation This indeed is a very firm and sure way of doing it but I am afraid it will not be altogether so cogent as to convince an Atheist for such an one will not believe Moses his History neither the Creation nor any Tradition relating to it Now the whole force of his Argument will depend upon this slender hinge viz. The faithful and uninterrupted conveyance of this Tradition to all succeeding Ages But the present Learned Archbishop of Canterbury in that excellent Sermon of his against Atheism Page 51. tells us That it is much more likely that the Belief of God is a Notion which was bred in the mind of Man and born with him than a Tradition transmitted from hand to hand through all Generations especially if we consider how many rude and barbarous Nations there are which consent in the Opinion of a God and yet have scarce any certain Tradition of any thing that was done amongst 'em but two or three Ages before If the Knowledge of God says Cuperus Proem p. penult was drawn from the Light of Nature then it needed not to be proved That there was a God because thus we suppose it and already believe it But may not his own way of arguing be retorted more justly upon himself When he tells us p. 246. That Postquam per Dei Revelationem edocti sumus esse Deum tum intelligi posse c. When by Divine Revelation we are taught there is